Celebrating the Education & Work Teams’ Impact at New America

As New America turns 25 and on the eve of America’s semiquincentennial, New America’s Education & Work programs are celebrating our reporting, partnerships, and impact over the years. Partners, fellow collaborators, and current and former staff share how the organization’s advocacy, research, and technical assistance efforts have made a difference in students’, families’, and educators’ lives in a series of six short videos spanning our work from PreK-12 to higher education to workforce training in youth apprenticeship and community college.

The PreK-12 Education program focuses on strengthening public education by developing, investigating, and spotlighting new approaches to better serve children, youth, and their families. Among its many initiatives and projects, the program provides direct support to states, school districts, and educator preparation programs to implement Grow Your Own (GYO) Educator programs, a promising strategy for easing local teacher shortages and for increasing the racial and linguistic diversity of the teacher workforce. The program also has a long track record of providing research and analysis to reimagine a public education system that effectively serves students identified as English learners, also known as multilingual learners.

Lynne Gardner of the Oregon Education Advancement Council shares how her organization has worked with New America to help strengthen and support GYO Educator programs across the state, together building a stronger educator workforce.

Jenny Mills McFerron of EdTrust-Tennessee shares how New America has helped advance policy recommendations to strengthen English learner funding and to protect undocumented students’ access to a free public education.

The Higher Education program seeks to make higher education more equitable, inclusive, and accountable so that everyone has a chance to obtain an affordable, high-quality education after high school. For years, it has acted as a voice for students in policy discussions dominated by institutional interests.

Rachel Fishman, director of the Higher Education program at New America, shares how the program has helped students understand the true cost of college and value of their financial aid packages.

Clare McCann, a former New America employee now at The Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center, shares how New America’s Higher Education program has helped lead a sea change in deeper accountability and transparency in higher education.

Spanning the education-to-career continuum, CELNA has spawned many high-impact collaborations. Notably, the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) is a multi-year initiative that facilitates learning and knowledge sharing among a network of national and local advocates, and industry leaders that seek to expand access to high-quality apprenticeship opportunities for high school-aged youth. Meanwhile, the Accelerator for Community Colleges in the Innovation Economy is a partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation and New America’s Future of Work & Innovation Economy (FOWIE) initiative to build community colleges’ institutional capacity for industrial strategy and workforce training related to emerging technologies and industries.

Jubei Brown-Weaver, a former youth apprentice, current data analyst at Accenture, and PAYA Youth Council member, shares how his youth apprenticeship program shifted the trajectory of his life and career prospects.

Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, past director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), shares the importance of Accelerator for Community Colleges in the Innovation Economy, a strategic initiative launched jointly by NSF and New America.